that he could have wielded the power to pressure men into sex, but the narrative around the discussion at
the time seemed to ignore the reality that there is a big difference between a heterosexual man pressuring a
woman into sex, and a young gay man doing the same to straight men.
Charles said his invite to the Met Gala was ‘a
step in the right direction for influencer
representation’ (AFP/Getty)The double-edged sword of overnight fame
Herd mentality and cancel culture do not lead to thoughtful analysis of a situation, but rather to a distilled
version of a story which people will blindly latch onto to validate their own beliefs, and a pervasive one is
that influencers largely do not deserve the acclaim and success they achieve.
They are seen as narcissistic and entitled. People who manage to make a living just by being young and
charismatic. This sense of unfairness around their success is amplified in cases like that of Charles, whose
sudden rise to internet fame was not necessarily unique, but the scope of his influence and the lightning
speed with which he achieved it is unparalleled.
By May 2019 – just over two and a half years after the ringlight photo – Charles had 16.6 million subscribers
on YouTube, putting him in an elite category of beauty influencers alongside Rachel Claire Levin (14
million subscribers), who began posting YouTube videos in 2010; Jeffree Star (15 million subscribers),
whose audience has been growing since the mid-2000s when he was one of the most popular pages on
MySpace; NikkieTutorials (12 million subscribers), who’s been posting on YouTube since 2010; and Safiya
Nygaard, who rose to prominence when she made videos for BuzzFeed in 2015. Charles’s overnight success
stood in huge contrast to the reality of “making it” as an influencer, which typically involves years of hard
graft and steady growth.
Brooks believes his fast rise to fame may have been a key factor
in the collective desire to take him down. “A lot of YouTubers –
including Tati Westbrook – started at a time when the industry
and the community wasn’t so fickle. James’s very quick rise to
fame in a way gives way to his downfall.”
She explains that while YouTubers who have been on the
platform for a decade have a dedicated, loyal audience, the new
wave of followers who have latched onto Charles recently have
not developed the long-term allegiance to him, and know they
have hundreds of others creators out there whose content they
can consume instead.
Influencer and author Emily Clarkson wrote about the scandal as